On This Day / July 21, 1921

Summary: On This Day – 21st July 1921, James Craig defended Partition in London while a judge warned of the absurd consequences of dividing Ireland’s legal system. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

Craig Meets PM | On This Day – 21st July 1921

THE conference on the Irish Question took a dramatic turn yesterday.

Mr Lloyd George and Mr de Valera met in Downing Street during the afternoon.

They remained in consultation for an hour and three quarters and the Sinn Fein leader left just as Colonel Sir James Craig and members of his Cabinet were appearing.

The [Unionist] representatives then went in and, on reappearing, made their way to Euston Station. Sir James announced that he and his colleagues were going home.

Mr de Valera, he said, had asserted the right of self-determination for Ireland and, as ‘Ulster’ had declared at the elections in favour of Partition, he presumed that her choice would not be disputed and he was going back to work the Partition Parliament.

Sir James said: ‘By an overwhelming majority at the recent election … the people of NI have determined their own Parliament…

‘Mr de Valera and his colleagues have already admitted the right of such self-determination on the part of Northern Ireland by the fact that they themselves stood as candidates for the Northern Parliament and submitted their policy of ‘No Partition’.

‘This was the only issue placed before the electorate and ‘No Partition’ was rejected by the largest majority….

It merely remains for Mr de Valera and the British people to come to terms regarding the area outside that of which I am Prime Minister.’

Hugh Martin of the Daily News writes: ‘It may now be stated definitively that Mr de Valera will not meet Sir James Craig in London or anywhere outside Ireland.’

Judge Parodies Partition

AT THE Derry County High Sheriff’s luncheon on Monday, Mr Justice Dodd spoke on the passing of the North West Circuit and drew an entertaining picture of what threatened to happen.

The judges, on reaching Lifford, would stop there.

But they could not stop there for there were no lodgings for them at Lifford. (Laughter.)

It would follow that they would have to pass each day from one part of Ireland to another part and would have to apply to the authorities of Northern Ireland for an escort to meet them at the bridge over the Foyle.

He hoped a united judicature would evolve.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As Craig determined to ‘sit on his Ulster rock’, it was clear that he would have the unswerving support of Bonar Law and the Tory party in resisting any attempt to inveigle him into a united Ireland.

In Derry, Judge William Dodd, a former Protestant Home Rule MP, mourned the abolition of the all-Ireland courts and the North-West circuit which had stretched from Westmeath to Derry and Donegal.)

On This Day – 21st July 1921

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